Using email as username field in Django 1.5 custom User model results in FieldError

Question

I want to use an email field as the username field for my custom user model. I have the following custom User model subclassing Django\'s AbstractUser model:

Answer 1

Ian, thank you very much for the clever response :)

However, I've already "patched" me a solution.

Since AbstractUser also have a username field which is totaly unnecessary for me
I decided to create my "own" AbstractUser.

By subclassing AbstractBaseUser and PermissionsMixin I retain most of the User model built-in methods without adding any code.

I also took advantage of that opportunity to create a custom Manager to eliminate the use in username field all together:

from django.contrib.auth.models import AbstractBaseUser, PermissionsMixin, BaseUserManager

class CustomUser(AbstractBaseUser, PermissionsMixin):
     ....
     email = models.EmailField(max_length=255, unique=True)
     first_name = ...
     last_name = ...
     is_active = ...
     is_staff = ...
     ....

     objects = CustomUserManager()

     USERNAME_FIELD = 'email'


class CustomUserManager(BaseUserManager):
     def create_user(self, email, password=None, **extra_fields):
          .....

     def create_superuser(self, email, password, **extra_fields):
          .....

This solution does result in repetition of some of Django's built-in code (mainly model fields that already exist in AbstractUser such as 'first_name', 'last_name' etc.) but also in a cleaner User object and database table.

It is a real shame that the flexibily introduced in 1.5 with USERNAME_FIELD can not be used to actualy create a flexible User model under all existing constrains.

EDIT: There is a comprehensive worked example available in the official docs: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/auth/customizing/#a-full-example